STILL A VIRGINIAN: After earning critical raves last year with her album The Virginian, Vancouver-based singer Neko Case is being sent home to the U.S. soon.

The singer plays the Horseshoe tomorrow with Montreal's Local Rabbits and former Buffalo Tom singer Bill Janovitz.

"I'm in a band," says Case, miffed at her adoptive country's recent crackdown on musical aliens. "It's cultural exchange. It's not like I'm an extortionist or something, and that's the way I was treated."

Case, who was born in Virginia and raised in Tacoma, Wa., recently completed her studies at Vancouver's Emily Carr Institute Of Art and Design. That means she needs a pricey work permit to remain in Canada.

"If I was independently wealthy and could afford a lawyer, it would be fine," she says with a laugh. "But Canada doesn't love me that much."

Still, Case says we haven't seen the last of her. She is currently on the road with the Local Rabbits, who are acting as her back-up band. The tour includes six dates on the Lilith Fair tour and a stop at Fort York for Blue Rodeo's Stardust Picnic July 11 and 12.

She'll then move to Seattle and join a new version of her band, The Boyfriends, which includes members of the bands Untamed Youth and The Model Rockets.

"I'm still talked about like I'm a Canadian in the American press," says Case. "I like being both. It's a unique perspective that I enjoy. America and Canada need to get a little friendlier with each other. People would probably scoff and get all nationalistic if they heard an American say that.

"Let 'em. I'm the one who has to go across the border all the time, and deal with all the red-tape, and our countries don't like each other very much at all, even though our people do.

She adds: "I could talk at length about what Canada has done for my life. And, artistically, Canada has totally claimed me as one of their own."

Case is already at work on her next album, which she'll record in Vancouver in December and release by Valentine's Day on Chicago roots label Bloodshot.

"It's my attempt to celebrate love, which I have learned to hate," she says. "It's my attempt to make up with love."